Pieve of San Pietro (Sec. XI)

The origin of the Pieve of St. Peter dates back to medieval times, although the site is rich in Roman finds. The building is almost overhanging on the Dora, along the right bank of which runs one of the most important Roman streets, the street of the Gauls, the Francigena Path, which departed from the Porta Segusina of Turin, and bordering the Dora pushed to the alpine valleys . There are correlations between churches and latin lands of agricultural character, there are clues even in the Pieve di San Pietro: apart from the name of the "Aebutii" imprinted on a brick - and this powerful family had some lands in the area - apparently the great stone which is the threshold of the presbytery was part of a press in use in the first century AD.
The site could have hosted a religious building: it has been noted as the churches of the triangle Asti - Turin - Casale raised on older sites of temples or pagan buildings. Therefore, in our case, it is possible to hypothesize with good reason a continuity of settlement and a long continuity of religious worship, considering that in the early Renaissance building of the Iron Age (6th century BC) we recall the fragment of pluto reused in our Pieve. It could be postponed to longobard times (VI - VIII century) the fact that the basic measure used in the building is the "liprando" foot (by Liutprando, king Longobard) and that the title to Saint Peter would appear common in the places conquered to Catholicism, against the Aryan faith of the Longobards. In the 10th century, more precisely in 985, the first document was written about Pianezza, which mentions a monastery "Sancti Petri qui dicitur vetere"; here our Pieve has been identified in dependence on the monastery of Breme.
The Romanesque facade dates back to the time when the Savoies have the castle of Pianezza: divided by four pilasters, adorned with brick arches under the roof, but also the cruciform opening, the brick arch overhanging the portal is elegant and, in its shape, is consistent with Romanesque architecture. At that time it also refers to the polychrome play of brick and brick strips; there is a certain regularity: three courses of brick and one stone, but being the stones of different height, there is, in the first place, the impression of a certain asymmetry. Even the streaks engraved on the bricks would be of its own. It could go back to a pre-existing building, instead, the threshold stone. The date of construction is assumed in the second half of the twelfth century.
The façade is facing west: the whole building is oriented East-West, far from casual, considering it is the same as all Romanesque churches in the Lombard area; the apse part coincides with the East, where the Highest resides and where the Altar Major is located.
Concerning the interior, it is assumed that the central nave ends with a semicircular apse surmounted by a basin. The rooftop roof would be in sight, as the wooden ceiling would date back many centuries later. The central nave dimensions have precise ratios: 13 meters long and half wide and the width corresponds to the height of the walls. The lateral arches are somewhat irregular and asymmetrical and are thought to have been opened in the Gothic era when lateral navarelles were added. Most probably the church was not paved but dumped, and it was surrounded by a cemetery like all “Pieve”.
The Gothic style dates back to the renovation: the semicircular apse of the central nave is replaced with today's square-shaped apse.
The exterior of the Est facade has its most significant part in the central sector, adorned by trilobate cobblestone archetypes underneath the bundles of moldings, a common motif in Gothic Piedmont between the third and the fifteenth century; there are traces of windows and circular openings, then closed to make room for the frescoes of the lateral aisles. The lateral nodes, or added, or restructured, were covered with cruise linings, with oval sectional stone ribs. The chapel of St. Biagio is preceded by a slightly oval-shaped barrel vault, decorated with plant and geometric motifs made with the technique of the mask; Outside there are traces of a fresco of which the caption "Sancti Blaxii" is clearly visible; the chapel ribs rest on white marble men's protomes.
Gothic is the western facade of the North nave, on which stands the white palmetto marble eye surrounded by concentric brick frames, and adorned as the North wall with arches on the edge of the roof. Beyond the chapel of St. Biagio opens an archaic door, which served as a main portal in the Gothic era; on the left there was an holy stoup, of which there is only the circular base with a hole for the dispersal in the consecrated land of holy water. This door actually introduces a rise from which to the left goes down to the chapel and, continuing, it had to go to a staircase that probably led to a choir located above the western portal, the passage was created afterwards.